Black Boy Joy

by Black Boy Joy (retail) (epub)

  “Mr. Bazil!” I blurt out. “I called you up. To do you a favor.”

  Bazil’s fiery eyes look me up and down. “You? Do ah favor for me? What nonsense yuh talking?”

  “I hear you the Chief Devil,” I reply. “That you the boss over every Jab, witch, and spirit.” My chin jerks to the soucouyant. “You know what she tell me? That she come here from Arima. That she left without permission and fooled her old boss. You that fool, Mr. Bazil?”

  The Chief Devil’s eyes narrow at the soucouyant, who shrinks back.

  “Allyuh think I does make joke?” He snaps his fingers. “Bookman!”

  A second devil appears in another burst of green flames. The Bookman! His pink skin stands out, even among his fancy silk robes of every color imaginable, with two small batwings flapping on his back. His head is enormous. Too big for even his tall body, with a pointy black beard, pointy ears, and two small pointy horns.

  “Bookman, is there a missing soucouyant from Arima making a fool of me?” Bazil asks.

  The Bookman opens a giant leather-bound book, its pages flipping in a blur before they stop. He reads for a bit; then his blue eyes shift to the soucouyant. “You are not where you are supposed to be.”

  Bazil’s eyes now grow bright with rage. Instead of roaring he inhales. The soucouyant shrieks, trying to flee. But she flies toward Bazil’s open mouth, and he swallows her up! The Chief Devil belches, and I think I hear her still screaming in his belly. He turns to the douen cowering by my bed, pointing to the soucouyant’s skin. “Pick that up and come.” The douen jumps, grabbing up its mistress’s skin and clothes. Bazil turns to me, his nostrils flaring.

  “My little summoner. I suppose now I owe you a favor.”

  I look around my destroyed room. “I don’t suppose you can fix all this?”

  Bazil snorts again, and snaps his fingers.

  * * *

  I’m at Carnival with my parents, the one they have here in Brooklyn. It’s not the same as back home. But the food, the music, the costumes—it’s familiar enough. Reminds me that even if I’m becoming American, this is still part of me too.

  “Nice Jab.”

  The words fill my head with flashes of Miss Marabella. But when I spin around, there’s a girl. She’s my age—in jeans, a T-shirt, and a Bajan flag around her neck. Her brown freckles are even darker than her brown skin, like her frizzy brown hair. What I’m gawking at, though, is what’s behind her: a towering figure in bright colorful clothing and a wide hat, with long willowy legs and arms. A Moko Jumbie. Not one of the stilt walkers in the parade—but a real Moko Jumbie!

  “Nice Moko Jumbie,” I reply, hardly believing my eyes.

  The girl grins. “I’m Cheryl. We saw your Jab. Thought we’d say hi.”

  “We?”

  She motions to several other kids in the crowd, each with a spirit!

  “The tall girl is Patsey. She’s from the Bahamas and that big bird-thingy is her Chickcharnie. Devin is the one with glasses. His Bacoo—the little pointy-eared man eating a banana—followed him from Guyana. That last one is Kelvin, from Georgia. His Boo Hag looks scary, with all those teeth, but she won’t bite—much. We have a sorta secret club at school. You’ll be there tomorrow, right? I’ll introduce you—if you’d like.”

  I nod. “I’d like that a lot! Wait. What kind of secret club?”

  She leans in to whisper. “There’s monsters in this city. Did you know? We try to hunt them down, before they hurt people. You okay with that?”

  I smile so wide, it hurts.

  We walk over to the others, who wave at me. My Jab follows, dancing down Eastern Parkway with a Moko Jumbie—bits of memory and magic that we brought with us to this new place, and that we can’t help but hold on to.

  PART THREE

  FORT LAY on the floor, galaxies swirling beneath him, and clasped his hands behind his head. Mr. G did the same. The two stared up at the giant jar now filled to the brim with humming, melodious bubbles of joy. It filled the Between with a soft blue light, and planets, stars, comets, and asteroids swirled slowly around it.

  “You see?” Mr. G said softly. “Joy is at the center of everything. Just have to coax it out.”

  Fort squinted. “It’s like a galaxy of goodness.”

  “More like a spectacular solar system.”

  “A constellation of contentment.”

  Mr. G held up a fist and Fort dapped it. They stared at the jar for a few more minutes, and then Fort sighed. “I guess this means we’re done here.”

  Mr. G nodded. “Just about.”

  Fort sat up and clutched his knees to his chest. “I like it here. It’s like…gardening, but for joy. In space. So actually it’s nothing like gardening.”

  A small planet floated out of orbit and bobbed gently toward them. Mr. G watched it, then groaned as he pulled himself to his feet. “Looks like this is your stop, young Fortitude. You’re needed. The job must be finished.”

  The planet floated to a stop in front of them. Fort, confused, stood to get a closer look. When he stepped forward, the planet shimmered, stretched, and twisted! It grew larger and wider, until finally it loomed over him, a giant silver rectangle.

  “It’s another door,” he said, staring in wonder.

  Mr. G nodded. “Back to your world. To the very spot where we departed, in fact.”

  The door opened. Bright Carolina sunlight fell through. After spending so much time in the Between, Fort was nearly blinded. But strangely, he found himself eager to get back. No one would ever believe where he’d been, but that didn’t matter, not really. Having a secret only he could remember, an experience designed just for him…well, it was like a friend that would always travel by his side.

  Fort stepped closer to the doorway, then turned to look back at Mr. G. “What about you? Are you going back to the Between? Maybe I could…come back and visit? If that’s okay with you,” he hurried to add.

  The old man sighed. “I would like nothing more, but I think this is it for me, young Fortitude. Carrying the jar of joy, maintaining the vastness of the Between…it’s grown to be too much. I’m tired. Once you leave I think I shall pick a nice planet and find a little joy for myself while I still can.”

  Fort shook his head in confusion. “You’re retiring? But…what about the joy? Who will collect it? And you still have to deliver the jar! What about the balance? Who’s going to restore the balance?”

  Mr. G smiled. He pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it over. Fort caught it and froze.

  It was a key ring.

  “I think I’m leaving the Between in good hands,” Mr. G said softly.

  Fort spluttered, shook his head. Him? Run the Between? Collect joy and maintain balance? He didn’t know the first thing about it! Well, yes, he knew how to collect the joy now. How to sift out memories of loved ones, of first crushes, of hitting the right dance move at the right time and hearing friends cheer. He knew how to snag the feelings of contentment, of growth, of love. Mr. G had showed him. But doing it on his own? He couldn’t.

  Could he?

  “What about,” Fort asked, still in a daze, “what about the delivery? I don’t even know where it goes. I don’t know who needs it!”

  The smile on Mr. G’s face, impossibly, grew even wider as he pointed to the doorway. “Don’t you?”

  Fort stared at him, confused. He turned. Through the bright sunlight shining in the doorway, across the gleaming blacktop parking lot with the freshly painted yellow lines, past the somber sign advertising Aunt Netta’s repast, up the stairs of Grover Street Church, Fort watched the front doors burst open and several adults in suits and dresses—church members!—run out in a flurry.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said.

  Mr. G stretched and began a set of weird kicks where he tried to touch his heel to the back of his he
ad. “On the contrary, young Fortitude. I suspect something is very right.”

  “But there’s Mr. Richards, and Mrs. Jeffers and her sister, and—”

  Fort broke off. Swallowed. Took two steps forward before he even realized he was walking. Stared at the pregnant woman moving slowly down the stairs, her hand on her belly as the others fluttered around her. Suddenly he knew.

  “Mama,” he whispered. “She’s gonna have the baby.”

  A hand landed gently on his shoulder. Mr. G nodded at Fort’s mother, who walked slowly by the homegoing sign. “It’s like I said. Balance. Where there’s death, there will be life. Where there used to be emptiness”—he tapped Fort’s hand holding the keys—“there will be purpose. And where there is sadness, there will be joy. If someone is unable to find it themself, like…oh, I don’t know, a newborn baby…well, someone else should help them, right? Now. Here you are.”

  Fort turned. Mr. G held out the handle of the wagon, the jar of joy glowing in back. “I told you, my boy. I’m getting too old for this. Time for someone new to search the Between for those in desperate need of joy. And what better place to start…than right at home?”

  Fort took the handle, still in shock. He was going to be a big brother. He was going to be a…wizard?

  Mr. G turned and walked slowly back into the darkness, fingers grazing the stars.

  Fort licked his lips. “How do I know who needs joy?” he shouted after the old man.

  “Easy!” came the reply. “We all do!”

  Fort took a deep breath and turned to face the doorway. His mother waited on the curb, probably for someone to bring around the car. Soon they’d be on their way to the hospital. Soon he’d have another person in the family, someone tiny and precious and unable to fend for themself. Whoever his sibling turned out to be, they would be born into a tough world. A sometimes-sad world, where people you loved died, got hurt, or even just felt blue from time to time. They would need joy. They would need Fort.

  Fortitude Jones squared his shoulders. He squeezed the handle of the wagon, lifted his chin, and nodded. He had a job to do.

  One step.

  Two.

  And he walked through the doorway, wagon trundling behind him, as the newest, youngest, and just-a-teeny-tiny-bit-scarediest Griot of Grover Street.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  *Deep inhale*

  Always thank the village, because you can’t do it alone.

  Thank you to everyone who made this possible: from my agent, Patrice Caldwell, to Hannah Hill at Delacorte Press/Penguin Random House, to the sixteen authors who joined me in sharing their joy: B.B., DaVaun, Dean, Don, George, Jason, Jay, Jerry, Julian R., Julian W., Justin, Lamar, Phenderson, Suyi, Tochi, and Varian. Thanks for riding with me, fam.

  Big thanks to Kadir Nelson for the dope cover.

  Huge thanks to everyone behind the scenes working so furiously to bring you this joy: Beverly Horowitz, Barbara Marcus, Dominique Cimina, Kristopher Kam, John Adamo, Tamar Schwartz, Jenica Nasworthy, Colleen Fellingham, Alison Kolani, April Ward, and Jen Valero.

  Thank you to the boys I grew up with, my brothers, my friends, the ones who ran the streets with me and the ones who couldn’t escape them. Thank you to my Howard U boys, who still hold me down, twenty years strong, I love you all.

  Thank you to my wife, who would call me her boy, and at whom I blow a raspberry in return. Take that, love.

  Thank you to my girls, my daughters, who know that I would never diminish their stories.

  Finally, thank you, reader. I hope this book brought you joy.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Joshua Aaron Photography

  B. B. ALSTON lives in Lexington, South Carolina. Amari and the Night Brothers is his debut middle-grade novel. When he’s not writing, he can be found eating too many sweets and exploring country roads to see where they lead.

  Thomas Sammut

  DEAN ATTA’s poems deal with themes of race, gender, and identity. He regularly performs across the UK and internationally, and his work has been shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize and has appeared on MTV and BET. His debut YA novel, The Black Flamingo, is a Stonewall Book Award winner and a CILIP Carnegie Medal Nominee. You can find him online at deanatta.com.

  Hollis King

  JERRY CRAFT is the New York Times bestselling and Newbery Medal–winning author of the graphic novel New Kid. His second graphic novel, Class Act, was an instant New York Times bestseller. Craft is also the creator of Mama’s Boyz, an award-winning comic strip, which won the African American Literary Award five times. He is a cofounder of the Schomburg Center’s Annual Black Comic Book Festival. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts.

  Victoria Ruth Photography

  JAY COLES was born and raised in Indianapolis. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Tyler Johnson Was Here and Things We Couldn’t Say, a composer with the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, and a professional musician. He is a graduate of Vincennes University and Ball State University and holds degrees in English and Liberal Arts. When he’s not writing diverse books, he’s advocating for them, traveling the world, gushing over books by his favorite authors, and composing music for various music publishers. Jay writes full-time and currently resides in Muncie, Indiana, which he loves a lot, but he would love the chance to live farther west someday.

  P. DJÉLÌ CLARK is the award-winning and Hugo-, Nebula-, and Sturgeon-nominated author of the novellas Ring Shout, The Black God’s Drums, and The Haunting of Tram Car 015. His short stories have appeared in online venues such as Tor.com, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and in print anthologies including Griots, Hidden Youth, and Clockwork Cairo. He is a founding member of FIYAH: A Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction and an infrequent reviewer at Strange Horizons. He resides in a small Edwardian castle in New England with his wife, twin daughters, and pet dragon, where he works as an academic historian. When so inclined, he rambles on issues of speculative fiction, politics, and diversity at his aptly named blog The Disgruntled Haradrim. His debut novel is A Master of Djinn.

  Adrienne Giles

  LAMAR GILES writes for teens and adults across multiple genres; his work appears frequently on Best Of lists. He is the author of the acclaimed novels Fake ID, Endangered, Overturned, Spin, The Last Last-Day-of-Summer, Not So Pure and Simple, and The Last Mirror on the Left, as well as numerous pieces of short fiction. He is a founding member of We Need Diverse Books and resides in Virginia with his wife.

  Arin Sang-urai

  DON P. HOOPER is a writer and filmmaker of Jamaican heritage. He was a staff writer for the 2017–2020 Writers Guild of America East Awards, and his directing work has been selected and featured in the NYC Horror Film Festival, the New Jersey Horror Con and Film Festival (award winner), Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival, and others. His poetry has been featured in Unión de Periodistas, the “Ransack” chapbook, and the “Jerk Apricots and Chains” chapbook. He does voice-over in video games and documentaries. He proudly reps Brooklyn, all day, every day.

  Sean Howard Photo

  GEORGE M. JOHNSON is an award-winning Black Queer writer, author, and activist living in the NYC area. They are the Indie bestselling author of All Boys Aren’t Blue, a memoir manifesto discussing their young adult experience growing up Black and Queer. George has written on a range of topics for publications such as Teen Vogue, Entertainment Tonight, NBC, The Root, BuzzFeed, and Essence. George also served as Guest Editor for BET.com’s Pride month. George has been seen on MSNBC, BuzzFeed’s AM2DM, The Grapevine, PBS Nightly News, and various shows on Sirius XM Radio. On social media, they have an impressive presence, with over 70,000 engaged followers on Twitter who are always eager to see what George is writing next. George recently signed a deal
with Gabrielle Union and Sony TV to develop their memoir for television.

  Kenneth Gall

  VARIAN JOHNSON is the author of several novels for children and young adults, including The Parker Inheritance, which won both Coretta Scott King Author Honor and Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor awards; The Great Greene Heist, an ALA-ALSC Notable Children’s Book and a Texas Library Association Lone Star List selection; and the graphic novel Twins, illustrated by Shannon Wright, which was named a School Library Journal Best Book and a Horn Book Fanfare Selection. He lives with his family near Austin, Texas. You can visit him on the web at varianjohnson.com and on Twitter at @varianjohnson.

  Bryan Jones Photography

  KWAME MBALIA is a husband, father, writer, New York Times bestselling author, and former pharmaceutical metrologist, in that order. His debut middle-grade novel, Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, was a Coretta Scott King Honor book and an instant New York Times bestseller. Its sequel, Tristan Strong Destroys the World, was also an instant New York Times bestseller. A Howard University graduate and a Midwesterner now living in North Carolina, Kwame survives on dad jokes and Cheez-Its.

  Manuel Ruiz

  SUYI DAVIES OKUNGBOWA is a Nigerian author of fantasy, science fiction, and other speculative works inspired by his West African origins. He is the author of Son of the Storm, the first novel in the Nameless Republic epic fantasy trilogy. His highly acclaimed debut, the godpunk fantasy novel David Mogo, Godhunter, was hailed by Wired as “the subgenre’s platonic deific ideal.” His shorter fiction and essays have appeared internationally on Tor.com and in periodicals such as Lightspeed, Nightmare, Strange Horizons, Fireside, Podcastle, and The Dark and anthologies like Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, A World of Horror, and People of Colour Destroy Science Fiction. He has taught creative writing at the University of Arizona (where he also completed his MFA in Creative Writing) as well as spoken and lectured at various venues in the United States and beyond. He currently lives in Tucson, Arizona. You can find him on Twitter at @IAmSuyiDavies and on Instagram at @suyidavies. Learn more at suyidavies.com.